A storage system typically comprises one or more storage devices into which information may be entered, and from which information may be obtained, as desired. The storage system includes a storage operating system that functionally organizes the system by, inter alia, invoking storage operations in support of a storage service implemented by the system. The storage system may be implemented in accordance with a variety of storage architectures including, but not limited to, a network-attached storage environment, a storage area network and a disk assembly directly attached to a client or host computer. The storage devices are typically disk drives organized as a disk array, wherein the term “disk” commonly describes a self-contained rotating magnetic media storage device. The term disk in this context is synonymous with hard disk drive (HDD) or direct access storage device (DASD).
A virtual machine environment illustratively includes a computer, such as a storage system, executing a virtual machine operating system along with one or more “guest” operating systems to essentially implement virtual machines on the storage system. Each guest operating system may comprise a conventional operating system, such as Microsoft Windows or Linux, etc. or may comprise a specialized operating system, such as a storage operating system. Furthermore, it may be desirable to execute a plurality of guest operating systems (or a plurality of instantiations of a guest operating system) within a virtual machine environment configured in a clustered arrangement. Thus, a cluster may comprise identical guest operating systems or may comprise a heterogeneous pairing of guest operating systems, e.g., a Microsoft Windows based guest operating system paired with a Linux based guest operating system. Typically, a substantial amount of time is required to restart a guest operating system in the event of an error condition as the guest operating system must re-probe all attached devices to determine the current configuration. The time required to re-initialize reduces overall system throughput.